Tinted vehicles without permits to be impounded, fitness revoked

Any vehicle with tinted windows that does not have the required permit will be impounded by the police and have its fitness revoked.
This is according to Deputy Police Commissioner and Traffic Chief, Linden Isles, who during a recent exclusive interview with <<<Guyana Times>>> stated that while the laws regarding tinted vehicles do not stipulate the percentage allowed, any police officer on duty who stops a motor vehicle must be able to identify its occupants.
The Traffic Chief added that “if you apply through the Minister and you give reasons there are parts in the law that the Minister can give exemptions. So at this point in time, we are working with that law. If the vehicle is having tint and you don’t have a tint permit, you can be deemed as an unfit vehicle where the police can ask you to take it to the station, we give you revocation notice, your fitness is revoked so you cannot drive that vehicle.”
He explained that no police officer is authorised to instruct any driver to remove the tint from his/her vehicle if it is pulled over by the rank.
“The police officer does not have the authority to say to a driver ‘look remove the tint’, the tinted motor vehicle without permission, it is an offence. If we stop you, if the policeman stops you on the road and you want to take off the tint that’s your decision but we won’t tell you to take off the tint,” the Traffic Chief stressed.
According to Isles, since his assumption to the post of Traffic Chief, there have been a number of successful prosecutions of persons who have broken the law in relation to having unlawfully tinted vehicles.
“We have been enforcing persons who would want to have tint on their vehicle without a tint permit, we know that this is an offence, and we have been enforcing the law. We have been having persons appear before the court. Some persons will decide well look we will take off the tint. But as I am saying to you this is not a police decision to make you take off the tint because that is not lawful.”
While for some, tints serve as protection against the sun, for others, it has been used to conduct illegal activities, including robberies. For the darker tints, the Ministry of Public Security has to grant permission.
In the application for a tint waiver, vehicle owners must submit a copy of the Certificate of Vehicle Registration and the Certificate of Fitness and a copy of the last tint permit received (if applicable).
The process from application to final approval or rejection for a tint waiver is that upon receipt of the application, along with documents required, the applicant will be served with a letter that must be taken to the Licence Revenue Office (LRO) in order to verify the vehicle’s tint density.
Subsequent to the completion of this verification process, the LRO will submit its tint reading to the Minister of Public Security for approval/refusal. The Ministry notifies the applicant of the final decision, and if the application is approved, the applicant is granted a Tint Waiver Permit.
The permits are valid for one year and should be renewed at least one week before the expiry date. Only vehicles with a manufacturer’s tint will be eligible to be considered for a tint waiver.